If you want to do good for the world, Duke University Prof. Michael Munger has a piece of advice: Listen to the price system. He compares prices to a genie that knows everything in the world and tells you exactly what goods and services humanity needs most. H/T Learn Liberty
Do free market advocates care about the plight of the poor? In this video, Professor Matt Zwolinski from the University of San Diego argues that both free market advocates and social justice proponents can agree that the rules of a just society should work for the maximum advantage of its poorest members. They differ, however, mainly on HOW to achieve the best results for the poor.
Communist China now has over a million millionaires. But what do China’s richest people do for fun? H/T Journeyman Pictures
“Producing laws is not an easier problem than producing cars or food,” says David Friedman, author, philosopher and professor at Santa Clara University. “So if the government’s incompetent to produce cars or food, why do you expect it to do a good job producing the legal system within which you are then going to produce the cars and the food?”
Friedman sat down to talk with Reason TV at Libertopia 2012 in San Diego. Friedman reflected on the impact of his landmark book, The Machinery of Freedom, discussed the differences between libertarianism and anarcho-capitalism and revealed what his father, economist Milton Friedman, thought of his anarchist leanings.
On Black Friday, a timely day to resurrect this episode of Penn & Teller’s Bullshit, defending Walmart against the political stooges, unions, anti-capitalists, competitors and Left-leaning activists aligned against the retail chain.
This is one of the best takedowns ever of Robert Greenwald, the lockstep propagandist masquerading as a documentary filmmaker, who created Walmart: The High Cost of Low Price, among other works. Greenwald assails Walmart for opposing unions, but as Penn & Teller note, he’s never used union crews on his low-budget, agitprop movies. It brings to mind what William F. Buckley once told a detractor, “I won’t insult your intelligence by suggesting that you really believe what you just said.” (Caution: NSFW, owing to language and nudity) H/T iOwntheWorld
UPDATE: A nationwide boycott against Walmart fizzled out today. Shoppers came out in droves, and as few as 50 Walmart employees — out of a workforce of 1.3 million — staged walkouts. A union-backed group, Our Walmart, was leading the fight and garnered plenty of media coverage, but apparently its support was all Astro-Turf.
Walter Williams, renowned professor of economics at George Mason University, builds a strong case defending the free market as being morally superior than a market either directly controlled by the government or heavily dependent upon government bailouts. He’s interviewed by Dennis Prager.
Why are the taxpayers always on the hook when the federal government engages in crony capitalism, and tries to manipulate the free market and pick out winners and losers from among private businesses. Andrew Klavan explains the pitfalls.
Lots of leftists these days are down on capitalism, but how many of these pampered protesters have really thought through their positions? Step into an alternate reality where capitalism doesn’t exist, and everyone’s free to scrounge for government handouts of coffee and gruel, and to dodge the riot police. This mix of It’s A Wonderful Life and Groundhog Day was created by the Fund for American Studies. H/T IMAO
More nuggets of nincompoopery from the Progressive Manifesto. H/T Conservative Hideout 2.0
SALUTE TO AYN RAND
Ayn Rand’s famous TV appearance on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson surfaced earlier this summer, and now a second vintage Rand interview has been published for the first time on YouTube. In this March 1974 interview with James Day, host of the PBS show Day at Night, Rand discusses:
